Quick Links

Club PA 2.0 has arrived! If you'd like to access some extra PA content and help support the forums, check it out at patreon.com/ClubPA

The image size limit has been raised to 1mb! Anything larger than that should be linked to. This is a HARD limit, please do not abuse it.

Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

[Book] Thread 20XXAD

JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod

Books! Despite everything, they're still around. The right book can save a life, ignite a passion, or spark a revolution. The wrong book is Atlas Shrugged.

Here are some books that are good. Tell us of others.

The (Semi)Official D&D Recommended Reading List

GENERAL FICTION

The New York Trilogy by Paul AusterThe Savage Detectives by Roberto BolanoFicciones by Jorge Luis BorgesThe Master and Margarita by Mikail BulgakovIf on a winter's night a traveler by Italo CalvinoInvisible Cities by Italo CalvinoThe Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael ChabonHeart of Darkness by Joseph ConradLord Jim by Joseph ConradThe Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre DumasThe Name of the Rose by Umberto EcoFoucault’s Pendulum by Umberto EcoAs I Lay Dying by William FaulknerThe Sound and the Fury by William FaulknerThe Great Gatsby by F. Scott FitzgeraldCarter Beats the Devil by Glen David GoldA Farewell to Arms by Ernest HemingwayFever Pitch by Nick HornbyDubliners by James JoyceUlysses by James JoyceTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper LeeOne Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia MarquezBlood Meridian by Cormac McCarthyThe Road by Cormac McCarthyLonesome Dove by Larry McMurtryCloud Atlas by David MitchellBlack Swan Green by David MitchellThe Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Harauki MurakamiHard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Harauki MurakamiLolita by Vladimir NabokovPale Fire by Vladimir NabokovThe Quincunx by Charles PalliserYouth in Revolt by C.D. PayneThe Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas PynchonFranny and Zooey by J.D. SalingerCivilwarland in Bad Decline by George SaundersA Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy TooleSlaughterhouse-Five by Kurt VonnegutBreakfast of Champions by Kurt VonnegutInfinite Jest by David Foster WallaceTrainspotting by Irvine WelshThe Intuitionist by Colson WhiteheadThe Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton WilderLife with Jeeves by PG Wodehouse

SCIENCE FICTION

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas AdamsThe Foundation Trilogy by Isaac AsimovThe Caves of Steel by Isaac AsimovThe Player of Games by Iain M. BanksThe Algebraist by Iain M. BanksThe Stars My Destination by Alfred BesterThe Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster BujoldEnder’s Game by Orson Scott Card2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. ClarkeRendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. ClarkeDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. DickThe Man in the High Castle by Philip K. DickWhen Gravity Fails by George Alec EffingerNeuromancer by William GibsonPattern Recognition by William GibsonThe Forever War by Joe HaldemanDune by Frank HerbertBrave New World by Aldous HuxleyThe Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K. Le GuinA Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.1984 by George OrwellChasm City by Alastair ReynoldsRed Mars by Kim Stanley RobinsonHyperion by Dan SimmonsIlium by Dan SimmonsLast and First Men by Olaf StapledonSnow Crash by Neal StephensonAnathem by Neal StephensonStations of the Tide by Michael SwanwickThe Dying Earth by Jack VanceA Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor VingeDread Empire’s Fall by Walter Jon Williams
The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton WilsonThe Book of the New Sun by Gene WolfeThe Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe

FANTASY

The First Law trilogy by Joe AbercrombieThe Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd AlexanderThree Hearts and Three Lions by Poul AndersonOryx and Crake by Margaret AtwoodThe Sharing Knife by Lois McMaster BujoldThe Dresden Files series by Jim ButcherThe Codex Alera series by Jim ButcherThe Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. ChestertonJonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna ClarkeLittle, Big by John CrowleyThe Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. DonaldsonThe Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven EriksonAmerican Gods by Neil GaimanAsh by Mary GentleThe Magicians by Lev GrossmanBridge of Birds by Barry HughartThe Dark Tower by Stephen KingThe Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott LynchA Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. MartinPerdido Street Station by China MievilleThe Scar by China MievilleThe Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
The Discworld series by Terry PratchettHis Dark Materials by Philip PullmanThe Name of the Wind by Patrick RothfussThe Hobbit by JRR TolkienThe Lord of the Rings by JRR TolkienThe Once and Future King by TH WhiteMemory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad WilliamsLatro in the Mist by Gene WolfeThe Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny

MYSTERY/CRIME

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Myron Bolitar series by Harlan CobenMurder on the Orient Express by Agatha ChristieThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan DoyleL.A. Confidential by James EllroyAmerican Tabloid by James EllroyThe Maltese Falcon by Dashiell HammettThe Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett
The Ripley novels by Patricia HighsmithFletch by Gregory Macdonald
The Wallander novels by Henning Mankell
The Inspector Rebus novels by Ian RankinKeeper by Greg Rucka
The Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. SayersHardcase by Dan SimmonsGorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith

ESPIONAGE/THRILLERS

Complicity by Iain BanksTinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le CarréThe Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le CarréThe Constant Gardener by John Le CarréThe Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
The James Bond novels by Ian FlemingOur Man in Havana by Graham GreeneThe Quiet American by Graham GreeneHarlot's Ghost by Norman MailerKeeper by Greg RuckaA Gentleman's Game by Greg RuckaThe Crook Factory by Dan Simmons

HORROR

Weaveworld by Clive BarkerWorld War Z by Max BrooksThe King in Yellow by Robert W. ChambersHouse of Leaves by Mark Z. DanielewskiHeart Shaped Box by Joe HillIt by Stephen KingThe Talisman by Stephen King and Peter StraubDemons by John ShirleySong of Kali by Dan SimmonsCarrion Comfort by Dan SimmonsJohn Dies at the End by David Wong

NONFICTION

Tokyo Vice by Jake AdelsteinThe Wonder That Was India by AL BashamD-Day by Anthony BeevorEasy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter BiskindThe Centennial History of the Civil War - Bruce CattonThe Selfish Gene by Richard DawkinsGuns, Germs and Steel by Jared DiamondThe Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward GibbonTeam of Rivals by Doris Kearns GoodwinSpeed Tribes by Karl Taro GreenfieldAll Creatures Great and Small by James HerriotThe Iranian Labyrinth by Dilip HiroGödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas HofstadterThe Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter HopkirkMarvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean HoweIn the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan by Seth JonesKiss Kiss Bang Bang by Pauline KaelI Lost It at the Movies by Pauline KaelOn Writing by Stephen KingBattle Cry of Freedom by James MacPhersonFear of Music: The 261 Greatest Albums Since Punk and Disco by Gary MulhollandThis is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco by Gary MulhollandThe Prince by Niccolo MachiavelliMy Turf: Horses, Boxers, Blood Money and the Sporting Life by William NackZombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton OswaltYou'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again by Julia PhillipsSpike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes by John PiersonThe Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver SacksThe Demon-Haunted World by Carl SaganThe Dragons of Eden by Carl SaganHomicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David SimonThe Corner by David Simon and Edward BurnsThe Elements of Style by Strunk and WhiteReading Comics by Douglas Wolk

Reading list does not have To Kill a Mockingbird. This needs corrected!

On slightly less firm ground, what does the thread think of some HP Lovecraft? I know he drowns in purple prose and has some problematic attitudes as hilariously revealed in the inspiration behind Innsmouth, but I really enjoy The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and At the Mountains of Madness, the former for the mystery and the latter for the sheer atmosphere he conjures.

+1

Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular

Sometimes Lovecraft's stuff is unreadable and awful, and he is rarely ever underwriting anything, but in his best stuff he gets across, through some literary alchemy I can't actually detect, an atmosphere of alien, unknowable, nihilistic evil that lurks on the outskirts of consciousness that no one else can replicate. He's often a terrible, racist writer who also manages to create some of the most disturbing, influential fiction ever made.

I can heartily recommend INJ Culbard's comic book adaptations of Lovecraft's stories. He's also just done The King In Yellow.

I have his Mountains of Madness, Charles Dexter Ward and Shadow out of Time. They are great.

In non-fiction I've started listening to Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I could wait until the middle of next year to give you my thoughts, but a peak at the contents is interesting how outside the Byzantine Empire the later volumes looks like a more general history of Medieval Europe.

I can heartily recommend INJ Culbard's comic book adaptations of Lovecraft's stories. He's also just done The King In Yellow.

I have his Mountains of Madness, Charles Dexter Ward and Shadow out of Time. They are great.

In non-fiction I've started listening to Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I could wait until the middle of next year to give you my thoughts, but a peak at the contents is interesting how outside the Byzantine Empire the later volumes looks like a more general history of Medieval Europe.

A really good companion volume to this is Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire. It's not written as a direct response to Gibbons - although he does touch on how far archaeology and modern systems of political and cultural analysis have taken the understanding of Rome since his day. What I found fascinating was Heather's framework for understanding the Roman Empire, especially the late empire.

Essentially, he said the key to understanding Rome was to frame it as the ancestor of the modern totalitarian despotisms. All of the written accounts have to be taken as propaganda, and any real historical analysis needs to take into account discoveries made in the last century from analyzing things like gravestones, account books and coinage. He uses the case of a major battle at Frankfurt as an example.

In the Roman written records, Frankfurt was a massive Roman victory where the enemy was crushed. Digs at the sites, however, show that the Germanic fort at Frankfurt was not sacked, but showed signs of growth and prosperity. Roman records from after the battle - backed up by archaeological evidence - show that the Romans were actually sending massive shipments of grain to the fort after the battle.

If you read the records like Gibbons did, you see the Romans dominating the area and start to see the decline as some sort of loss of virtue within Rome. If you put all the pieces together like modern historians, you see that the Romans lost and were paying tribute to the Franks, while declaring their great victory back home in the same way that the Nazis declared victory every time they lost on the Eastern Front.

On The Goblin Emperor, I ended up liking it once I wrapped my head around the fact that it was essentially a fantasy Jane Austen novel - more interested in questions of manners and propriety than actions scenes. Its pretty unique in the genre, and I found myself quite enjoying it once I had settled in.

If I had one major complaint, it felt like all of the conflicts wrapped up too neatly. Part of this comes from the feeling I got that this was the start of the series, and the book's main goal was to introduce the cast of characters and the setting, while hinting at the major problems coming down the line.

0

AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular

Finally reading A Canticle For Leibowitz. I was expecting something a little drier, and am very pleased to find a rich vein of humour.

It's definitely more stylish than you'd expect of a book about the post-apocalypse written in the 1950s.

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman is the sequel. Walter Miller killed himself in the 1990s before it was finish, but using copious notes it was completed and published. It is not as good as Canticle, but still worth reading. It takes place shortly after the second section of Canticle, about 70 years or so and follows a crusade led by "The Red Deacon" Cardinal Brownpony and an imminently fallible monk from St Leibowitz's, Br Blacktooth St George. It is a very different tone from Canticle, but it is in many ways more human. You get inside Blacktooth's head as he struggles with faith in God, faith in the church, faith in Brownpony, and faith in himself. You also get a lot more development of the world of post apocalyptic North America that I find really benefits the later chapters of Canticle on a reread.

There's a war, mutants, a couple coups, but the heart of the story is something very special. If you like Canticle, give it a go.

I started reading the Black Company books on recommendation of a dedicated thread that has since died. Really enjoyed the first book. I only read when I am tired, so 1-2 setups/descriptions really confused me and I couldnt decipher what the author was saying. I really enjoyed the modern style dialog and writing for fantasy setting. I hate any setting that feels like it cant make a fantasy world without having 15 consonants and apostrophes in every name.

I'm halfway through the second book. The second book is set up so strangely that I don't know what to think. The crossing stories make it like a less interesting fantasy version of Snatch.

Finally reading A Canticle For Leibowitz. I was expecting something a little drier, and am very pleased to find a rich vein of humour.

It's definitely more stylish than you'd expect of a book about the post-apocalypse written in the 1950s.

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman is the sequel. Walter Miller killed himself in the 1990s before it was finish, but using copious notes it was completed and published. It is not as good as Canticle, but still worth reading. It takes place shortly after the second section of Canticle, about 70 years or so and follows a crusade led by "The Red Deacon" Cardinal Brownpony and an imminently fallible monk from St Leibowitz's, Br Blacktooth St George. It is a very different tone from Canticle, but it is in many ways more human. You get inside Blacktooth's head as he struggles with faith in God, faith in the church, faith in Brownpony, and faith in himself. You also get a lot more development of the world of post apocalyptic North America that I find really benefits the later chapters of Canticle on a reread.

There's a war, mutants, a couple coups, but the heart of the story is something very special. If you like Canticle, give it a go.

Is the sequel really worth reading? I'm a huge, huge Canticle fan, but looking into people's thoughts about Wild Horse Woman had returned almost uniformly negative results.

Canticle is such a singular work that I'm afraid reading a bad novel in that universe would almost be distasteful, you know? Like midichlorians. I don't really feel the need to just explore more of the world in the way I would with like Hugh Howey's post-apocalyptic America or China Mieville's Bas Lag if the story's not all there.

I just posted this in chat, sorry to spam but I just noticed this far more appropriate thread: help me out, chat! I'm trying to find some books for a Chinese kid, 15 years old, can have a decent conversation about a lot of things but needs to start reading, and textbooks are boring

I have an essentially unlimited budget and an Amazon account

he likes The Walking Dead TV show, so I figured I'd hook him up with the comic, maybe get him intro'd to decent American comics with Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man...

what else is out there? Anything decent young-adult-wise that hasn't already been made into a movie that he's probably seen?

0

AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular

Finally reading A Canticle For Leibowitz. I was expecting something a little drier, and am very pleased to find a rich vein of humour.

It's definitely more stylish than you'd expect of a book about the post-apocalypse written in the 1950s.

Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman is the sequel. Walter Miller killed himself in the 1990s before it was finish, but using copious notes it was completed and published. It is not as good as Canticle, but still worth reading. It takes place shortly after the second section of Canticle, about 70 years or so and follows a crusade led by "The Red Deacon" Cardinal Brownpony and an imminently fallible monk from St Leibowitz's, Br Blacktooth St George. It is a very different tone from Canticle, but it is in many ways more human. You get inside Blacktooth's head as he struggles with faith in God, faith in the church, faith in Brownpony, and faith in himself. You also get a lot more development of the world of post apocalyptic North America that I find really benefits the later chapters of Canticle on a reread.

There's a war, mutants, a couple coups, but the heart of the story is something very special. If you like Canticle, give it a go.

Is the sequel really worth reading? I'm a huge, huge Canticle fan, but looking into people's thoughts about Wild Horse Woman had returned almost uniformly negative results.

Canticle is such a singular work that I'm afraid reading a bad novel in that universe would almost be distasteful, you know? Like midichlorians. I don't really feel the need to just explore more of the world in the way I would with like Hugh Howey's post-apocalyptic America or Chine Mieville's Bas Lag if the story's not all there.

Hm. I kind of answered my own question there...

It's not really a bad novel, but it's a very different book from Canticle.

I liked it, but I don't like it as much as Canticle.

It is a much more traditionally structured book than Canticle, and a very different experience. If you keep that in mind when you start I think you have a better time of it.

I can heartily recommend INJ Culbard's comic book adaptations of Lovecraft's stories. He's also just done The King In Yellow.

I have his Mountains of Madness, Charles Dexter Ward and Shadow out of Time. They are great.

In non-fiction I've started listening to Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I could wait until the middle of next year to give you my thoughts, but a peak at the contents is interesting how outside the Byzantine Empire the later volumes looks like a more general history of Medieval Europe.

A really good companion volume to this is Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire. It's not written as a direct response to Gibbons - although he does touch on how far archaeology and modern systems of political and cultural analysis have taken the understanding of Rome since his day. What I found fascinating was Heather's framework for understanding the Roman Empire, especially the late empire.

Essentially, he said the key to understanding Rome was to frame it as the ancestor of the modern totalitarian despotisms. All of the written accounts have to be taken as propaganda, and any real historical analysis needs to take into account discoveries made in the last century from analyzing things like gravestones, account books and coinage. He uses the case of a major battle at Frankfurt as an example.

In the Roman written records, Frankfurt was a massive Roman victory where the enemy was crushed. Digs at the sites, however, show that the Germanic fort at Frankfurt was not sacked, but showed signs of growth and prosperity. Roman records from after the battle - backed up by archaeological evidence - show that the Romans were actually sending massive shipments of grain to the fort after the battle.

If you read the records like Gibbons did, you see the Romans dominating the area and start to see the decline as some sort of loss of virtue within Rome. If you put all the pieces together like modern historians, you see that the Romans lost and were paying tribute to the Franks, while declaring their great victory back home in the same way that the Nazis declared victory every time they lost on the Eastern Front.

Really interesting stuff.

Yeah, I've been following the History of Rome podcast, which is what turned me on to Decline, and "history is written by the winners/side who writes at all" is a theme I'm aware of. Like the story of Valerian's capture by the Sassanid's: Persia has him captured after the battle, Rome has him lured to the Sassanid court under false pretenses and seized. Of the two, I know which is more likely. Especially after Caracalla's shenanigans half a century earlier.

Hello, I'm a long time reader first time poster. I was wondering if anyone could figure out these books for me.

1) The first book is a story where Good has finally triumphed over evil but the world becomes unbalanced and therefore the heroes in this book are a band of evil heroes who try to restore the balance and in the end released evil in the world. This was a fantasy book with dragons and I remember the title had a Knight on its cover.

2) The second book is actually a series of 3 books. It stars an African hero, I think the writer based the hero on a Kenyan tribal warrior, who tries to save to world. All I remember was that there was a pirate type character who banded towards them to save the world. The hero might or might not be a wizard and I remember a scene where they enter a Djinns house and he binds them to the floor where they are sitting. I think the hero was based on the Massai.

If anyone could remember which books these were, I'd appreciate it. Thank you!

Reading list does not have To Kill a Mockingbird. This needs corrected!

On slightly less firm ground, what does the thread think of some HP Lovecraft? I know he drowns in purple prose and has some problematic attitudes as hilariously revealed in the inspiration behind Innsmouth, but I really enjoy The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and At the Mountains of Madness, the former for the mystery and the latter for the sheer atmosphere he conjures.

"problematic" doesn't even begin to cover it in a lot of cases (not just Innsmouth)

that said I love me some Lovecraft. My favorite is Shadow out of Time followed by At the Mountains of Madness.

I can heartily recommend INJ Culbard's comic book adaptations of Lovecraft's stories. He's also just done The King In Yellow.

I have his Mountains of Madness, Charles Dexter Ward and Shadow out of Time. They are great.

In non-fiction I've started listening to Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I could wait until the middle of next year to give you my thoughts, but a peak at the contents is interesting how outside the Byzantine Empire the later volumes looks like a more general history of Medieval Europe.

A really good companion volume to this is Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire. It's not written as a direct response to Gibbons - although he does touch on how far archaeology and modern systems of political and cultural analysis have taken the understanding of Rome since his day. What I found fascinating was Heather's framework for understanding the Roman Empire, especially the late empire.

Essentially, he said the key to understanding Rome was to frame it as the ancestor of the modern totalitarian despotisms. All of the written accounts have to be taken as propaganda, and any real historical analysis needs to take into account discoveries made in the last century from analyzing things like gravestones, account books and coinage. He uses the case of a major battle at Frankfurt as an example.

In the Roman written records, Frankfurt was a massive Roman victory where the enemy was crushed. Digs at the sites, however, show that the Germanic fort at Frankfurt was not sacked, but showed signs of growth and prosperity. Roman records from after the battle - backed up by archaeological evidence - show that the Romans were actually sending massive shipments of grain to the fort after the battle.

If you read the records like Gibbons did, you see the Romans dominating the area and start to see the decline as some sort of loss of virtue within Rome. If you put all the pieces together like modern historians, you see that the Romans lost and were paying tribute to the Franks, while declaring their great victory back home in the same way that the Nazis declared victory every time they lost on the Eastern Front.

Really interesting stuff.

I always quite liked Peter Heather, but given that he and one of my old supervisors had something of an

Hello, I'm a long time reader first time poster. I was wondering if anyone could figure out these books for me.

1) The first book is a story where Good has finally triumphed over evil but the world becomes unbalanced and therefore the heroes in this book are a band of evil heroes who try to restore the balance and in the end released evil in the world. This was a fantasy book with dragons and I remember the title had a Knight on its cover.

2) The second book is actually a series of 3 books. It stars an African hero, I think the writer based the hero on a Kenyan tribal warrior, who tries to save to world. All I remember was that there was a pirate type character who banded towards them to save the world. The hero might or might not be a wizard and I remember a scene where they enter a Djinns house and he binds them to the floor where they are sitting. I think the hero was based on the Massai.

If anyone could remember which books these were, I'd appreciate it. Thank you!

The first one sounds a lot like "Villains by Necessity" By Eve Forward.

So Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel is now a BBC miniseries. The first episode is available free from Amazon (even without prime), and it is remarkably good. It so deftly captures the collision between Austenite social comedy and ominous, almost horror-like magic that made the book special. Also, although it is pretty faithful so far, it is much faster paced than the book.

So Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel is now a BBC miniseries. The first episode is available free from Amazon (even without prime), and it is remarkably good. It so deftly captures the collision between Austenite social comedy and ominous, almost horror-like magic that made the book special. Also, although it is pretty faithful so far, it is much faster paced than the book.

I enjoyed the first episode, and I have tried to read the book twice but the beginning is so slow that I couldn't get very far.

So Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel is now a BBC miniseries. The first episode is available free from Amazon (even without prime), and it is remarkably good. It so deftly captures the collision between Austenite social comedy and ominous, almost horror-like magic that made the book special. Also, although it is pretty faithful so far, it is much faster paced than the book.

I enjoyed the first episode, and I have tried to read the book twice but the beginning is so slow that I couldn't get very far.

The first episode might have convinced me to give it another try.

Big fan of the book, and I liked the first episode pretty well. I was worried that you'd lose a lot just from not having the faux-Austen narrator, but I think 'BBC period miniseries' is a firm enough genre that you get some of the same effect. Huge complaint though at the end:

The gentleman with thistledown hair is way, way, way off-tone; between the SPECIAL EFFECTS and the ominous, leaden delivery....

So Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel is now a BBC miniseries. The first episode is available free from Amazon (even without prime), and it is remarkably good. It so deftly captures the collision between Austenite social comedy and ominous, almost horror-like magic that made the book special. Also, although it is pretty faithful so far, it is much faster paced than the book.

I enjoyed the first episode, and I have tried to read the book twice but the beginning is so slow that I couldn't get very far.

The first episode might have convinced me to give it another try.

Big fan of the book, and I liked the first episode pretty well. I was worried that you'd lose a lot just from not having the faux-Austen narrator, but I think 'BBC period miniseries' is a firm enough genre that you get some of the same effect. Huge complaint though at the end:

The gentleman with thistledown hair is way, way, way off-tone; between the SPECIAL EFFECTS and the ominous, leaden delivery....

I would that than unintentionally comic, which is how I suspect he would turn out if they kept him closer to the book.

Read The Library at Mount Char. It's sort of a revenge thriller set in a unique mythology (something of a Babylonian flavor crossed with Lovecraft). The voice and pacing remind me a lot of Idlewild. There's a lot of nice humor mixed in with the grimdark. I enjoyed it all except for the ending, which somehow manages to be both too pat and kind of nonsensical. It doesn't ruin the book at all, though.

I say this as somebody who is typically not the least bit bothered by Stephensons abrupt endings but this really felt like he hit a page limit threw in a paragraph or two about "The Purpose" and called it a day.

Also, you read Tolkien because he was seminal, most of his books are a real slog.

I am pretty sure I read Tolkien because I dearly love the prosody, the characterizations, the action of the plot and the emotions it stirs in me. It is certainly true that their appeal may be lost on the sort of person who wants nine volumes of detailed exegesis of fantasy magic systems, though, or people who have strict mayhem-per-page quotas that need meeting.

Also, you read Tolkien because he was seminal, most of his books are a real slog.

I am pretty sure I read Tolkien because I dearly love the prosody, the characterizations, the action of the plot and the emotions it stirs in me. It is certainly true that their appeal may be lost on the sort of person who wants nine volumes of detailed exegesis of fantasy magic systems, though, or people who have strict mayhem-per-page quotas that need meeting.

I really want some sort of graphing of mayhem-per-page across fantasy authors now.
To Google Analytics!

Also, you read Tolkien because he was seminal, most of his books are a real slog.

I am pretty sure I read Tolkien because I dearly love the prosody, the characterizations, the action of the plot and the emotions it stirs in me. It is certainly true that their appeal may be lost on the sort of person who wants nine volumes of detailed exegesis of fantasy magic systems, though, or people who have strict mayhem-per-page quotas that need meeting.

I think he's a bit of both.

Funny thing rereading LOTR a little while ago:
The flight from Rivendell sequence that is the best part of the FOTR movie and the movie trilogy in general?
Also one of the best parts of the book series and for exactly the same reason.

Speaking of challenging fantasy, I would really like to see R. Scott Bakkers Prince of Nothing series in the recommended reading list. They're maybe not for newcomers to the genre, but if you want cerebral fantasy, I'd say they're almost up there with Book of the New Sun. Plus, phalluses.

(Btw, I enjoyed Tolkien immensely, which is why I re-read LoTR every summer through ages 10-20. It belongs in the list for many reasons.)